It’s been three years since Chris Young dropped his acclaimed eighth studio album Famous Friends and, now, the former Nashville Star champion is back with a brand-new offering: Young Love & Saturday Nights. Chock full of heart and sing-along choruses, the new collection of songs makes for a masterfully crafted modern country album that, undeniably, will have listeners bopping along with a smile.
Recently, PopCulture.com had a chance to chat with Young, and he shared a little about the journey it’s taken to get Young Love & Saturday Nights out to his fans. “It is really, really cool that I had the ability to make a record and have the time, to not only write the songs, but find the songs that I needed for this album,” Young explained. “Because there’s three songs on this record that I didn’t write, and I don’t know if I’d have had that amount of time I would’ve found them.”
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He went on to add that sometimes artists, including himself, “try and rush stuff and we shouldn’t. I think that’s meaningful to have the ability to have the time to get all of this done.”
Young’s unmistakable fingerprint is all over his new album, and he clarified that this is because he has the freedom to do what he feels is right without anyone making demands. “Nobody really tells me to do anything at this point in my career,” he quipped, then adding that he does sometimes get the “push” he needs from his peers. “I’m also grateful for the ability to create,” he said, “and I’ve been lucky enough that my collaborators are all fantastically talented and they fill that role.”
During our conversation, we also asked Young about one of the Young Love & Saturday Nights singles, “Double Down,” which he told us is actually “the oldest song” on the album. “My buddy, Tyler Reeve, wrote this and I ended up hearing it and was like, ‘I want that song.’”
Young explained that he and Reeve “were just riding around in the truck playing each other’s songs” when Reeve turned on “Double Down,” which had been making the rounds for a while but wasn’t picked up. “They jokingly, in Nashville, call it being in demo jail,” he said with a laugh.
“I was cracking up because it’s him and Derek George and Monte Criswell,” Young continued, “and I’ve written with all of those guys, and it was one of those moments where I just fell in love with it. I was like, ‘I have to have this.’ That’s really indicative of all three of the songs that I did not write that ended up on this album. You hear them, you fall in love with them, you’re like, ‘I got to have this.’”
“I think that is a big part of why people like to collaborate,” Young went on to say. “It’s always hard to describe how you do a co-write. Everybody always asks that question, and the answer is there’s no really good answer to this question. It has to be malleable in the experience. I think for me, there’s days that your back is going to hurt from carrying everybody else, and there’s days their back is going to hurt.”
We also asked Young about his upcoming tour and what fans can expect, to which he replied, “I would just say that I feel this album is one of the best things I’ve done, and hopefully that’s what this tour is going to be. I’m going to put my heart into it to make sure it is.”
He also commented on the notion that putting together the track sequence for an album is very similar to crafting a tour setlist, saying, “I think they’re both two sides of the same coin as far as what you have to do as an artist.”
Finally, we asked Young how he reflects on his career after nearly two decades as a country music artists and he made it clear that he’s proud of how far he’s come and eager for what the future holds. “I’m really excited about it mainly because I’m 18 years in, but I started when I was 20, and I feel like a lot of people get started way later than that and never had that longevity,” Young said. “So I’m really proud of it and happy to still be around, and happy people still want to hear my music.”
Click here to find Young Love & Saturday Nights on your preferred streaming service, and click here for all Young’s current tour dates/concert tickets. Keep it locked to Pop Culture.com for more great country music exclusives, news and interviews!
